Why are we here? Is there a God? Can there be authentic mystical experience? Are Hindus and Buddhists correct that we can attain a state of enlightenment? Can psychedelic drugs give us a glimpse of it? Does religion have a viable place in the modern world? Is there a common core of values and insights among the world’s religions?

Huston Smith spent his career in a search for answers to these and other questions. Born in China in 1919, the son of Methodist missionaries, Smith followed a life-long spiritual quest that led him around the world many times. He studied the world’s religions and mystical traditions directly with Aldous Huxley, D.T. Suzuki, J. Krishnamurti, Alan Watts, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, the Dalai Lama, Joseph Campbell, Ram Dass, and a host of others. Huston, as a renowned philosopher of religion, helped shape the contemporary face of comparative religion, interfaith dialogue, and religious tolerance. As a seeker, he became a citizen of the world, plunging into its various spiritual traditions.

Some of Huston Smith’s books: The World’s Religions (Plus) Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine, an Autobiography Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World’s Religions Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition (Plus) Buddhism: A Concise Introduction And Live Rejoicing: Chapters from a Charmed Life — Personal Encounters with Spiritual Mavericks, Remarkable Seekers, and the World’s Great Religious Leaders The Huston Smith Reader

Dana Sawyer is the author of Huston Smith: Wisdomkeeper: Living The World’s Religions: The Authorized Biography of a 21st Century Spiritual Giant. He is also the author of an acclaimed biography of Aldous Huxley. He is professor of religion and philosophy at the Maine College of Art and a popular lecturer at venues such as Esalen Institute and Kripalu. An expert in Asian religions and theories related to the perennial philosophy, he has written for Tricycle, Parabola and other magazines. His website is http://dana-sawyer.com

We live in culture dominated by two contrived metaphysical inferences: that the world exists outside consciousness and that particular arrangements of matter in that world somehow generate consciousness. This distorted view of reality feeds the delusory dreams of artificial consciousness so prevalent in the media today, such as in movies like Ex_Machina.

In contrast to science fiction, however, there is the cold science fact of our complete failure to articulate, even in principle, how particular arrangements of matter could possibly generate consciousness. But instead of forcing our culture to revise its mistaken metaphysics, this failure is leading to a new delusion: panpsychism, or the notion that consciousness is in all matter, as opposed to all matter in consciousness. Under panpsychism, consciousness is fundamentally fragmented, just as matter appears to be. Single atoms allegedly have very simple consciousness, while more complex psyches, such as our own, can be built bottom-up by connecting atoms together.

In this video, we will see how both panpsychism and our dreams of artificial consciousness arise from a delusory interpretation of the facts of reality, as available to experience. We will see that consciousness isn’t created, but the framework wherein all creation happens. We will see that consciousness isn’t fundamentally fragmented, but fundamentally one. We will see that individual psyches don’t arise from bottom-up integration, but from top-down dissociation of a single consciousness. Finally, we will see how all this follows directly from true nondualism.

Chris Fields ponders the question whether or not entanglement can teach us something about the nature of consciousness. This video is an excerpt from SAND Anthology Vol. 5:http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/p&#8230;

Dr. Chris Fields is an independent scientist interested in both the physics and the cognitive neuroscience underlying the human perception of objects as spatially and temporally bounded entities. His particular interests include quantum information theory and quantum computing on the one hand, and creative problem solving, early childhood development and autism-spectrum conditions on the other. His recent papers have appeared in the International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Information, International Journal of General Systems, Advances in Cognitive Psychology, Frontiers in Perception Science and Medical Hypotheses among others. He is currently editing a Research Topic titled “How humans recognize objects: Segmentation, categorization and individual identification” for Frontiers in Perception Science.

Dr. Fields began his career as an experimental physicist, obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy of Science (University of Colorado, Boulder, 1985), and was an early developer of automated DNA sequence analysis tools and systems for the Human Genome Project. He has published over 130 refereed papers in nuclear physics, artificial intelligence, molecular biology and cognitive psychology. He holds U.S Patent # 5355435 (1994) for an integrated circuit chip that simulates a mammalian cortical neuron. Dr. Fields was the founding Scientific Director of the National Center for Genome Resources (Santa Fe, NM) and the founding Chief Scientific Officer of Molecular Informatics Inc.

Dr. Fields has also been a volunteer firefighter, a visual artist, and a travel writer. He currently divides his time between Santa Fe, NM and Caunes Minervois, a village in southwestern France.

Reflections on the universality of consciousness, Chris Fields
Chris Fields reflects on the arising of consciousness. This video is an excerpt from SAND Anthology Vol. 5:

The process of object recognition in the human brain
Chris Fields reflects on the process of object recognition and memory. This video is an excerpt from SAND Anthology Vol. 5:

The limitations of rational thought, Chris Fields
Chris Fields reflects on the limitations of rational thought. This video is an excerpt from SAND Anthology Vol. 5:

In my life and yours, every wise choice is always taking us ever closer to the conscious, loving, aware and spiritual person we truly are. Some of our stories will be life changing. Join me in a few of my life creations . . . chuckle at my humorous moments, probably identify with my painful ones, feel uplifted by the exhilarating and joyful stories and sigh with the sad ones.

The stumbling, fumbling, early steps along my path to spiritual enlightenment and unconditional Love This is the perfect book for friends and family who are just discovering their spiritual path, or who would like to know more about Michael in a very down-to-earth (literally!) way. This book is a collection of Michael’s stories revealing a path toward higher consciousness. Your stories and his are not so very different, but somewhere along the path of life he realised that, although each of our stories are separate, they are, nevertheless, a connected progression of steps toward our greater potential. He began to comprehend that no act, no thought, no emotion in any person’s life is separate and isolated; it all connects into one cohesive whole. All the many stories become one life story.

Born in England in 1937, Michael Roads discovered at an early age he had the natural ability to communicate with nature and go beyond linear time and space. He immigrated to Australia in 1963 where he was a beef and dairy farmer, and prominent in the early organic movement. He wrote the first book on organic gardening in Australia, which was an immediate best seller. After becoming spiritually awakened in 1986, Michael wrote about his metaphysical experiences and has since published 14 books, translated into 16 languages. 2012 marks his 21st year of traveling around the world giving profound and hugely popular talks and 5-day Intensives on unconditional Love and emotional balance. He offers clear metaphysical insights and relates his unique, experiential truth in a powerful, no-nonsense format, offering pathways to our deep spiritual connection with Nature, with Self, and with awakening to our Divine potential. – from http://www.michaelroads.com/about-mic&#8230;

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Published on Mar 13, 2015
Entanglement or non-separability is the core idea of quantum theory. It is a simple idea: the universe is not a bunch of independent parts, but is rather one entity that evolves through time as one entity. That’s it. The problem is that this means there’s no such thing as causation. This is very hard to wrap your head around. Quantum theory is extraordinarily accurate, and our knowing quantum theory is why we have things like cell phones and computers. But what is quantum theory, really? Why is entanglement its primary prediction?

This talk will explain what quantum theory is. I will show that quantum theory has nothing to do with tiny particles, wave-function collapse, or Schroedinger’s cat. Quantum theory is about how observers obtain information about the world. It is, in particular, about how observers who have memories and use language obtain information about the world. It is, in other words, about how you and I interact with perfectly ordinary things like tables and chairs and each other. You will leave this talk with a new understanding of quantum theory, and a new appreciation for entanglement.

Chris Fields is an interdisciplinary information scientist interested in both the physics and the cognitive neuroscience underlying the human perception of objects as spatially and temporally bounded entities. His current research focuses on deriving quantum theory from classical information theory; he also works on cell-cell communication and cellular information processing, the role of the “unconscious mind” in creative problem solving, and early childhood development, particularly the etiology of autism-spectrum conditions. He and his wife, author and yoga teacher Alison Tinsley, recently published Meditation: If You’re Doing It, You’re Doing It Right, in which they explore the experience of meditation with meditators from many walks of life.

Dr. Fields has also been a volunteer firefighter, a visual artist, and a travel writer. He currently divides his time between Sonoma, CA and Caunes Minervois, a village in southwestern France.

Published on Feb 23, 2015
The aim of this presentation is to derive the fundamental principles of special relativity and quantum mechanics from postulates that assume the existence of consciousness. This derivation is based on the fundamental existence of a uni ed reality. In this uni ed reality, the entanglement of systems in the physical world is a very natural and ubiquitous consequence.

We begin with the following postulate: there is one unifed entity in existence (Self), which perceives the world (itSelf) through localized perspectives, individually, one at a time. After restating that postulate in more physical terms, we arrive at both of the initial postulates for special relativity (relativity of physical law, constancy of the speed of light), as well as a fundamental property of quantum mechanics known as the single-framework rule.

From this model, we discover that light exists in a timeless and spaceless state. This result fits very nicely with the phenomenon of entanglement. Far more than an abstract concept applied only to experiments in a physicist’s lab, entanglement is a property of the universe providing connection across time and space that may have implications for everyday life. One such suggested implication is the phenomenon of synchronicity.

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Published on Feb 9, 2015
How can the dualities of quantum mechanics (QM) nurture our entanglement with others and with nature. I take the dualities seriously. In fact my California license plate since 1977 has been DUALITY. The chief QM duality is the subjective/objective, or I – It split. Having a QM duality is much better than classical mechanics without the need for the subjective. The beauty of the QM cut that separates the two dualistic view is that it is more like an I-Thou, Buber-like entanglement, but not in the way most people think. For me the jump from duality to non-duality is two-fold. First, because of the way entanglements work, the I-It split is movable. Second, because of the more than 20 interpretations of QM, all of which give identical predicted probabilities, we can jump around from ontology to ontology in a marvelous non-duality manner.

Stanley Klein, Ph.D.Professor of Neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley where he studies the visual system of humans, gathering empirical data and developing models for explaining the data. His side interests have been how to connect consciousness to science and more recently how to connect religion to science. He is now the membership chair of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science.

Published on Feb 9, 2015
That human beings can detect phenomena not only in their “local” environment through their senses but rather in some trans-sensory manner detecting “non-local” phenomena is an ancient idea that is part of many of the great philosophical and spiritual traditions of the past. Some non-local experiences have a more personal feel to them such as the knowledge of a loved one’s passing, linked consciousness in twins, synchronicity, and some other paranormal phenomena.

Other non-local experiences have a more transpersonal feel to them such as healing at a distance, out-of-the-body experiences involving shamanic journeys to other worlds, and interactions with subtle beings sometimes involving a merging of the local self with a non-local entity or higher self. And in some cases non-local experiences are clearly linked to spiritual awakening. For example, in the secret spiritual autobiography of the famous Buddhist adept Jigme Lingpa, who lived in 18th century Tibet, there are descriptions of Lingpa’s non-local experiences that he says were essential for his awakening. It is this class of essential non-local spiritual experiences that will be the central focus of this presentation.

There is currently a very lively debate whether non-local human experiences might in some way be related to the entanglement experimentally observed in quantum systems. According to Schrödinger, entanglement is a characteristic of a quantum system where two energetic particles that once were in contact, and then are later separated, will remain connected in such a manner that the quantum state of one cannot be completely described without considering the other. The correspondences between non-locality in quantum systems and in exceptional states of consciousness are intriguing and are certainly worth investigating from theoretical, experimental, and experiential perspectives.

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Published on Dec 27, 2014
The heart is a remarkable sensing instrument that is capable of extraordinary intimacy. Yet it is often veiled by psychological conditioning or a simple lack of awareness.

It is common to have a very clear mental understanding of nonduality along with tastes of a vast awareness while the depths of the heart remain dormant or blocked. is can lead to a subtle spiritual narcissism and arrogance (I know, you don’t. I’m awake, you’re not.)

Exploring the depths of the heart requires great vulnerability. As we are willing to honestly face and experience residual fears of emotional intimacy or abandonment, or desires to be recognized or admired, the heart softens and opens. A felt sense of intrinsic wholeness reveals itself. Love, compassion, and gratitude shine more freely and steadily.

As the heart awakens, new dimensions of intimacy unfold. We become more available to relate with others in an essential way. We may also discover a non-personal capacity of the heart to embrace the collective suffering of humanity.

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Published on Dec 27, 2014
Karen Johnson is the Co-founder of The Ridhwan School/Diamond Approach

Recent scientific discoveries have shown that two particles that have been in contact with one another under certain circumstances will behave as though they are in continual communication regardless of where they are in spatial relationship to one another. In other words distance is not a factor in the transfer and mutual influence of information. This discovery has important implications for human relationships.

Although more a metaphor than a proven correlation, it is interesting to note how the principle has parallels in terms of the deep spiritual conditions beyond the time space continuum that can impact experiences within the relational field. We will be investigating how entanglement can be seen as an expression of a kind of union between beings that is more intimate than simply being connected or not separate.

* How will two people experience this principle within their relationship?
* What are the implications of this kind of union?
* What kinds of potential does entanglement speak to that are inherent in
our relationships?
* What does it mean about love, intimacy, delight and pleasure?

I posit that it calls into question how we hold these human experiences. We can find that there is more to relationships than we have usually imagined. at our usual limited ways of experiencing, no matter how pleasurable or fulfilling; there is more mystery to them in ways that we might not have considered before.The presentation is a contemplation of how nonlocal entanglement can manifest itself in relationships.

Karen Johnson participated in the development of the Diamond Approach with Hameed Ali since 1970’s, She has been teaching in the US and Europe for 35 years. She has an MA in Psychology, and trained as an artist and dancer. She has an interest true spirit of scientific investigation based on the love for truth. The underlying truth that manifests through the beauty and order of the physical and spiritual universe has been a motivating force in her life. http://www.ridhwan.org/

Entanglement has a well-understood meaning in quantum mechanics. However, as any term, this very important concept has different interpretations and meanings, even among scientists. In this panel of scientists, the panelists will briefly discuss their own understanding and we will then attempt to identify a meaning very relevant in each panelists view to life.

We present an extraordinary breakthrough from String theory that explains the “spooky action-at-a-distance” nature of quantum entanglement, and ties this long-distance phenomenon directly to space-time wormholes—tunnels through space. We also present cutting-edge evidence that consciousness originates deep within the physical realm—in quantum gravity and superstring theory (unified field theory). Some scientists (e.g., Penrose) have made the radical proposal that consciousness originates from Planck-scale mechanisms rooted in quantum gravity. We explicitly conform this hypothesis using remarkable new findings from String theory and M-theory—“Holographic Duality.” We also show how these core, Planck-scale mechanics of consciousness relate to brain-scale cognitive functioning—i.e., how Consciousness enters the brain. We explain the key difference between content-free consciousness (Samadhi) and waking consciousness (awareness of content), and provide the key to experiencing both Samadhi and permanent Samadhi—Enlightenment.

John Hagelin, Ph.D., is a world-renowned quantum physicist,
educator, public policy expert, and leading proponent of peace. Dr.
Hagelin received his A.B. summa cum laude from Dartmouth College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, and conducted pioneering research at CERN (the European Center for Particle Physics) and SLAC (the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center). His scientific contributions in the fields of electroweak unification, grand unification, super-symmetry and cosmology include some of the most cited references in the physical sciences. He is also responsible for the development of a highly successful Grand Unified Field Theory based on the Superstring. He has pioneered the use of Unified Fieldbased technologies proven to reduce crime, violence, terrorism, and war and to promote peace throughout society—technologies derived from the ancient Vedic science of consciousness. http://www.hagelin.org, http://www.davidlynchfoundation.org